A Long Way Down
by writerfan2013
Summary: Joan meets a strange and intense young man in an airport cafe and tries to work out why he's there. One shot, just for fun. This has generated quite a few questions, so I have added a couple more clues. Thanks for all your feedback!


Joan pushed away the coffee cup. The first had been good - a pleasant break in a lounge overlooking the expanse of the airport apron. The second had been a time filler, a chance to relish coffee in a clean china cup that she had not had to make herself. The third had been decaff.

This was the fifth and she was sick of coffee, the view, and waiting for Sherlock's plane.

All around her the coffee lounge was full of people who has gradually been sifted out by departures being announced or flights arriving. Those that remained were like her, resentfully watching the screens, surrounded by the detritus of their beverage-based permission to linger in the coffee lounge, bored, bored, bored.

Joan was a patient person. She enjoyed quiet time. She could meditate when an opportunity arose. But this waiting was testing her, just as everything Sherlock did tested her. Except this delayed arrival was not, presumably, his fault.

She forced herself to remain in the moment and not get caught up in pointless anger at the airline, the airport, the coffee. Sherlock would unpick everyone in this place. and so would she.

Most were pretty straightforward. The suited man with a permanent frown and his BlackBerry clenched in his fist, occasionally waggling his neck as if the shirt and tie combo were unaccustomed: about to miss his meeting and his chance of a desperately wanted promotion.

The woman in a green dress, rather low cut for daytime, who kept checking herself in her phone-mirror, switching between that and photos of a man: awaiting her first meeting with her online date.

There was one man Joan could not figure out. She was not even certain if he was waiting for a departure or an arrival.

He sat alone right next to the ceiling-height window. He occupied a table which could have fit four, with such an air that people around him did not even ask if the other seats were free: his expression, when he glanced up at them, was utterly forbidding.

He wore black, head to toe, a rather nice suit and coat, with pointed black shoes. He was young, mid thirties, with collar length black hair and very pale skin, as if his life was spent indoors with the curtains drawn. Or in Britain, Joan reflected, thinking of Sherlock's grey complexion.

Joan was not sure what made this man stand out... perhaps his air of total self containment in this place of heightened emotions and high drama. While others sent texts, checked the web, or left increasingly high pitched voice messages, this man just sat, scowling mostly, sometimes sweeping around the coffee lounge with his gaze as if this might clear it of all the distasteful human litter.

Joan picked up her coffee cup again, using the movement to hide a shift in her seat so that she could see the stranger better.

Immediately he looked in her direction and locked eyes with her. His, she saw, were blue, and held an intensity which startled her.

He got up and strode to her table, pulled out a chair without breaking eye contact, and sat down.

"You're looking at me," he said. "Why are you looking at me?"

Joan blinked. British, well spoken, sharp consonants and swallowed vowels. "I was passing the time by trying to deduce the story of each person here."

His turn to blink. Then he seemed to relax, and swung his head around in another sweep of the room. "Pointless exercise. Everyone here is a stereotype except the barista, who is a cliche. "

"Not you," Joan said.

"I don't fit in boxes," he said. "Stop staring at me. You're putting me off."

It was a command. He got up and walked back to his table, with a simple "No!" to the couple about to occupy it. They scuttled away.

Joan frowned and stirred her coffee unnecessarily. Such rudeness. Although in fairness, she had been staring. And now she wasn't.

Where was Sherlock's flight from London? It was so delayed it must have not even taken off when she arrived to meet him. That was hours ago. "They could have been and come back by now," she muttered.

"Not true," said the man across the room, looking up from the newspaper he'd lifted from the seat beside him. "It's a six hour flight and we have been here less than four."

She frowned at him and said nothing. I live with a know it all, she thought. I know how to ignore them when I meet one in the wild.

Though how had he known which flight she was waiting for? Maybe he'd seen her watching that particular screen... or maybe it was an assumption because he was waiting for the same flight to come in.

More time passed. Joan fetched a hot chocolate and pastries.

Sherlock hated flying. "It would have been hardly any slower to come by boat," she remarked to the barista, who grunted. immune to airport delay humour.

She realised that her seat was now taken. Feeling perverse, she made her way to the window and, moving his blue scarf out of the way, sat down at one of the empty chairs where the man in black was glaring out at the planes.

Except he wasn't glaring, she saw now, sitting closer. His expression was fixed, taut, his lips pressed together...but it was the face of self control, of keeping things in check. Joan thought. One thing can tip him over the edge and then...what- rage? Or tears?

She rather thought the latter.

"I'm Joan Watson," she said, holding out her hand to this odd, intense man.

He looked at her suspiciously and then gave her hand the briefest of shakes.

"And you are..." she prompted.

He hesitated. "John," he said then.

"Are you waiting for someone on the London flight?" she asked.

"Hmmm." Now he projected a strong wish for her to go away - unluckily for him, as that was a surefire way to guarantee she stayed.

"A friend? Family member?"

"Why does everyone here talk like they're reading the news? 'Family member.' 'Loved ones'. Yes, a friend. Sort of."

"Sort of a friend or sort of waiting?"

He gave a minimal eye roll. "The second thing, if you must know."

"Well, that's something," she said, and took a sip of chocolate.

"What?"

"I'm right. You're not a stereotype. Or a cliche."

"Please. A man dressed in black being all grumpy and mysterious in a crowded public place? It most definitely is a stereotype, if only from a somewhat tedious mid century film."

She smiled. "That part, maybe. You can get a speck out of my eye later. But I meant the waiting. What is it, a surprise? Is he - or she - not expecting to see you?"

John laughed shortly. "He won't see me if I have anything to do with it."

Joan puzzled over this a moment. "So you're waiting all this time to see him... and yet... Got it. You're a journalist stalking a celebrity. You want that just-off-the-plane shot."

"Wrong." He cast the newspaper aside. "Shame, for a moment there I thought you'd guessed. Not that you could."

Her eyebrows lifted. "Oh I could. And I will. "

"You won't."

Silence fell and they both inspected their phones again.

"Your estranged child, "Joan said then. "Taken from you in a custody battle. You're... restrained from seeing him...but you can't resist trying to get a glimpse of him at the airport."

"Sensational stuff, but wrong again. My friend is an adult, and I am not divorced."

"Someone you're just stalking, then?" she suggested. "Maybe you're under a different kind of court order. Maybe I really have picked the wrong table. "

"Yes, I could so easily be staking out the airport, pretending to wait for a friend whilst actually sizing up the next target in my New York killing spree."

He chuckled but Joan did not laugh. His manner was so cold...and yet, she had seen that fragility as he stared out if the window. He was suffering on some level. She knew it. And despite his abruptness, she wished she could help.

"Ok," she said. "What do you do for a living?"

He could be anything, she realised then. He might be an artist or a scientist with those delicate but strong hands; a politician or a model with his sharp good looks; his expensive clothes might suit a doctor like herself ... or a conman.

"You'll never guess," he said, and sighed.

"Maybe that's why I'm asking, "she said.

"No," John said then, "you're asking because you want me to give away more about my reason for being here, in answering this apparently unrelated question."

"I thought you might work here," Joan said.

"A lie. You did not think that."

"Ok, I didn't. It would be the longest lunch break ever if you did. You've been here even longer than I have."

"And you await your sometime lover, sometime friend, back from an enforced visit to London. It's the first time you've been apart since you met, and you're concerned in case something has happened on his trip to break the spell which has been cast between you. Your friend is, perhaps, a little unreliable, and you're not sure how he will react when he learns how long you've waited. "

Joan stared at John.

"What," John said, "surprised? Wondering how I did it?"

"I think you would get on well with my friend," she said then. "Or you'd drive each other insane."

"I'm right though, aren't I? The ordinary clothes - you look nice but not overdone - the duration of the wait -point to waiting for a lover, but an unofficial one. You don't want to seem too clingy. He - I'm deducing it is a he based on your pupil dilations when looking at men, but not women, as you waited - has been obliged to take this trip, and is coming home on the very first flight available today, albeit now a very delayed one. "

Joan shrugged. "And you're here hoping for a glimpse of someone you want to avoid, a real conundrum. You're... Disgraced. Your friend is your, I don't know, ex boss. You've fallen from grace and now you're banished, sacked, whatever."

John narrowed his eyes. "I have fallen," he said. "Whether it was ever a state of grace remains in question."

The thought seemed to send a wave of discomfort throught him.

A plane took off from the closest runway, and John stood up to see it better. He looked from the aircraft. leaping into the sky, to the concrete down below. "It's a long way down," he said, "when you're falling. But when you reach the ground the worst part is over. The anticipation. Being on the floor doesn't hurt as much as you'd think. Most of the time."

Joan pondered this, watching his tense face as another plane dropped in where the last had left. "You did something terrible to your friend," she said. " You think he can never forgive you."

"And you think I was being metaphorical just now." He traced a shape on the glass with his index finger.

Joan waited. She could see various flaws in his logic but it was interesting to observe him as he spoke. It was like the glaring: a distraction, a way for him to not let go.

"You're sad," she said then. "This friend... an ex friend, maybe ex lover...you miss him."

John's eyes flickered. He said nothing.

"If you had a row, or something pulled you apart... a job... some change in personal circumstances..."

"Ha!"

"You shouldn't hide. You should meet him and let him know that you miss him. I bet he misses you too."

John's lips were pressed so tightly together they vanished.

"You know he does, "Joan said. "But you can't bear to step forward to put it right."

John shook his head. "Not that," he said, and his voice wobbled. He swallowed. "I can't let him see me. I just can't."

Joan leaned forward. "Listen," she said. "I work with a lot of people who think they're hopeless cases. But everyone can be helped. Things can be fixed, and a friendship most of all should be. Or what a waste, to go through life without your friend!"

John turned his head to the glass.

Joan finished her drink and looked around, giving him his moment. "I could tell him if you like," she said. "Give him a note, or something."

No reply. She peered at him, saw moisture on his cheek.

He really had it bad. "Ok, "she said. "I'm going to go for a walk, stretch my legs. I hope you meet your friend. If you need to talk, here's my card. I've seen a lot of broken things, and I'm a good listener."

He looked up at her as she got to her feet. "It can't be fixed, "he said. " I fell. He saw. It's permanent. It has to be."

"Death is permanent," she told him. "But you and your friend are alive."

He just shook his head.

Xxxx

"How was your aunt's funeral," she ask Sherlock later as they walked to the taxi rank.

"Obligatory," he said. "Next time I'll make you come with me. No point suffering alone."

"Is it illegal to fake your own death," she asked, joining the short queue for cabs.

"Depends on who will profit from it. Why?"

"I think I just met a nine-eleven survivor. Who hasn't told anyone he survived."

Sherlock's eyes swivelled to meet hers. "Quite a few of those about, "he said. "Like train crashes. Potters Bar, big crash outside London, horrid thing. Lots of people dead, but not quite as many as we first thought. People take the chance for a new life, fresh start, escape. I imagine it would be a marvellously freeing experience."

His eyes grew wistful.

"Don't bet on it," said Joan. "This guy was trying to be cold but really he was a wreck without his best friend."

"His friend? Not his lover, or family?"

She shook her head. "I don't get the impression he had anyone else."

"Imagine that, Joan," Sherlock said, climbing into the waiting cab. As Joan got in beside him he suddenly pulled her close. "No one in the world but you and your friend, the only person who means much to you at all."

He started to speak and then stopped, as the cab slid past the man in black watching a shorter man with grey hair and a weary expression get into the next cab.

"That's him," said Joan. "The nine eleven guy."

Sherlock looked. "You think so?" His expression held that faraway look which was meant to show her his innate superiority and her own incorrect assessment. This time, she did not rise to the bait. "I know every unaccounted-for face," Sherlock said then. "And he's not one of them. Although... he did fall. But not from those buildings."

"You're just going to torment me with it, aren't you," said Joan. She sighed and leaned back against his arm. "You know, I can live with that. I just hated how sad he was."

Sherlock landed an exaggerated kiss on the top of her head, then let go of her with his arm. "There's a word for people like him you know Watson."

She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Losers," said Sherlock, and Joan bashed him with her purse.

xxxx

Author's note: I hope you liked this farfetched fic and that I made the identity of the stranger obvious enough without having to put this into the crossover category - I wouldn't want to upset those other fans! (of which I am also one by the way). Anyway if you have any feedback on this one I'd be interested to hear it. And I sense some actual crossover in my future. Maybe.

-Sef


End file.
